Bride barters for her wedding on Craigslist

July 20, 2009

Updated Aug. 21, 2013 1:17 p.m.

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Kerry Coryell put off her wedding a decade ago when her mom got meningitis and she became her mom's full-time caretaker. Her mother since has passed away and the Laguna Niguel woman is using Craigslist to barter for the wedding she always wanted. MINDY SCHAUER, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Kerry Coryell and her boyfriend have four children. She recently posted one of the longer ads you'll find on Craigslist - about three typed pages - explaining how she'll perform household services in exchange for wedding services. She says the reaction has been shockingly positive. MINDY SCHAUER, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Kerry Coryell says she would never tell anybody else how big, or how small, to dream. So she's surprised by the few people who have reacted negatively to her Craigslist campaign to barter her way to a spectacular wedding. MINDY SCHAUER, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Kerry Coryell is jumping for joy at the thought of putting together the wedding of her dreams by bartering for services. MINDY SCHAUER, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Kerry Coryell got her teeth fixed a few years ago by performing services for her dentist. Those services ranged from stripping wallpaper off the office walls to helping shop for office furniture. As a nursing student and full-time mother, she and her fiance don't have enough money right now for a lavish wedding. So she's using the same strategy that she used to fix her teeth to put on a great wedding. MINDY SCHAUER, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Kerry Coryell of Laguna Niguel says her wedding will be held this year. MINDY SCHAUER, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Kerry Coryell put off her wedding a decade ago when her mom got meningitis and she became her mom's full-time caretaker. Her mother since has passed away and the Laguna Niguel woman is using Craigslist to barter for the wedding she always wanted.MINDY SCHAUER, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

A year ago Kerry Coryell was in desperate need of dental work. But she couldn't afford the $8,000 tab. So she posted an ad on Craigslist, offering up her many talents in exchange for a fixed-up mouth.

A Long Beach dentist took her up on it. In exchange for five crowns, a handful of fillings and a root canal, Kerry worked weekends remodeling his dental office: stripping wallpaper, painting, even furniture shopping for him.

Then, about a month ago, her girlfriend Rebecca Dever sent her an e-mail with a link to photos of a fairy tale wedding shot in Cabo by Lake Forest photographer Bob Ortiz. One of the photos even captured teardrops of happiness welling up in the eyes of the bride as she said her vows.

Kerry's first thought: Why is my friend torturing me?

Her second thought: Why can't I have a wedding like this?

But then Kerry had another thought. It was actually the same thought, but with a more positive spin.

Why CAN'T I have a wedding like this?

In a revelatory flash, Kerry recalled her dental victory. She went to her computer and banged out another ad.

It's quite possibly one of the longest ads in the history of Craigslist (three pages printed out), but here's an excerpt: "I am not at all superficial and my clothes usually come from garage sales. I never ask for anything for myself… but this day… just this one day, I want it to be mine, without limits, without settling. I hope you can help me."

The ad was posted nearly a month ago. To those who have sent her comments pointing out that the Justice of the Peace costs 50 bucks so get over yourself and your fancy wedding, she has a message:

"I would never tell anybody how little, or big, to dream."

Plus, she says, you don't know her story.

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Kerry was working as a cocktail waitress at Buzz on Lido Isle in 1999 when her mom, Marti, a longtime teacher at Whitaker Elementary in Buena Park, got meningitis. Marti pulled out of it but was left paralyzed, with no use of her legs and one hand. Doctors told the family the care would be intense and recommended they put mom in a home.

"Are you kidding me?" Kerry remembers thinking. "She raised five of us. You're not sending her to a home. No way. Not my mom."

Kerry moved to Murrietta (her parents had just moved there from Brea) and got an apartment up the street from their house. Then she got a job waitressing at the Outback Steak House.

At the time, she had a baby and a 4-year-old, but no husband. In between taking care of the kids and waitressing, she changed her mom's diapers, turned her over to prevent bed sores, injected food through a stomach tube.

"I loved being her caregiver," Kerry says. "I never lied to her when I told her that."

That's not to say there weren't rough days. On one of them, Kerry was crying and wishing she would meet Mr. Right. Three days later she did. His name: Kurt VanDerLinde.

That was nine years ago. In the nearly a decade that they've been together, Kerry and Kurt have talked about a wedding many times. But there was Kerry's mom to care for. Then Kerry's mom died. And the couple got pregnant. Twice. Their kids are 3 and 6.

Then, a month or so ago, the link to the romantic Cabo wedding photo shoot wound up in Kerry's e-mail box.

"Oooo, I want that," she remembers thinking. "And I just thought, 'Ya know, it really stinks that money is the only thing stopping us.'"

Kurt has a job selling printing equipment. But Kerry doesn't work, staying home to take care of the kids and taking night classes to become a nurse, a calling she realized when she was caring for her mom.

Kerry says that the night she told Kurt she'd posted another Craigslist ad, this time to barter for their wedding, "he laughed me out of town."

But by morning they had a DJ. "I'd be honored to do your wedding for free," the DJ wrote. No wallpaper stripping or baby-sitting or hair cutting would be necessary.

"I was blown away," Kerry says.

As if that wasn't enough, the DJ found her a videographer, as well as a guitar player to strum Canon in D at the ceremony.

As for the photographer who took the picture of the teary-eyed bride in Cabo? He's doing Kerry's bridal portraits.

She's also had offers for tanning, teeth whitening, fake eyelashes, flowers, a caterer and a minister.

Every morning, she and Rebecca, both 34 and both mothers of four, have what they call their "gratitude phone call," marveling over whatever new e-mails are in Kerry's inbox. She's gotten about 200 so far. Just this week Kerry launched a Web site, begbarterorbride.com, to tell her story.

"It's all the good she's done over the years coming back to her," says Rebecca, who has known Kerry since they met 22 years ago in sixth grade at Fanning Elementary in Brea.

It's not just what she did for her mom, Rebecca says. Her friend gives blood nearly every six weeks at the Children's Hospital Los Angeles. She's on the bone marrow donor list. "And actually hopes she's called."

She also makes beds for Santa Ana shelter dogs whose days are numbered. And once she went to the shelter seeking out the ugliest dog she could find to save it from certain death. "And let me tell you," Rebecca says. "She found him." Sparky (and his severe underbite) now lives with Kerry, Kurt and their kids in a 2-bedroom apartment in Laguna Niguel.

Kerry says she realizes that, to some people, a bartering bride might come off as "silly or self-absorbed."

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